James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

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or by email:gurneyjourney (at) gmail.comSorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.

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All images and text are copyright 2015 James Gurney and/or their respective owners. Dinotopia is a registered trademark of James Gurney. For use of text or images in traditional print media or for any commercial licensing rights, please email me for permission.

However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.

Like Solomon J. Solomon and some of the other great teacher/practitioners of his day, Speed expresses an insightful respect for the old masters. One thing I like about his concept of "mass drawing" is that it offers the student a natural transition between drawing and painting.

This isn't going to be a workshop. I'm not the teacher, nor will I be comprehensively summarizing the points of the chapters. I'll just share my basic take-away from each reading, and I may show an example of how those thoughts affect — or have affected—my own practice. I'm expecting to learn from you and from the discussion. I will try to answer a few questions, but I'm hoping that members of the forum can help shoulder some of the Q and A.

We'll discuss a new chapter every Friday. The discussion will take place in the blog comments. Let's get started a week from today with the Preface and the Introduction. That's your assignment, and mine, too. Those who have time can do practice exercises related to each chapter as we move through the book.

If someone wants to set up a Facebook or Pinterest group for posting artwork, that would be great, and I'll link to it. (Edit: Here's Pinterest link, thanks Carolyn Kasper. Keita Hopkinson also created a GJ Book Club Facebook page here.) I may stop by for a quick visit, but I'll probably focus most of my attention and comments on the blog so that the forum and discussion will be archived and searchable.

62 comments:

I think this is a great idea. I've read this book a couple of times. Lots of insightful information in there. Would be interesting to see what you and other people have learned from this book. Getting others viewpoints on the concepts might be helpful in understanding them better.

Maybe you can add the link to the Project Gutenberg version of the book (it's not just scanned, it's a digital version reviewed by actual humans). I don't know how it compares to the others you have linked to, but the HTML version looked ok: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14264

Love the idea of a book club. A few weeks ago after a drawing session 2 people suggested books by Harold Speed and James Gurney, which is how I ended up here. Nothing has been the same since (in a good way). Where would the discussion take place, in the comment section of your blog?

Two other additions for consideration are The Natural Way to Draw, by Nicolaides, and The Human Figure by John H. Vanderpoel.

I have just followed this blog for a week or so (this is my first comment; wonderful blog!), but this sounds like a great project and I am very keen to take part, being a newbie to drawing with just a few classes under my belt.

However, living all the way over in Swedish Lapland, I will probably come late to all discussions. Hopefully, I can still contribute somewhat.

I love the idea too. I just downloaded the Gutenberg version (thanks dmr) and it looks great, preferable, from what I've seen, to the scanned version. Honestly, I'm not sure how faithful I'll be with completing the weekly readings but I'm game to try!

Thanks, everybody! This will be a fun kind of "communal self-teaching." Carolyn, I added your Pinterest link—perfect!

Jenna, I agree, some of the most valuable books are not instructional. There are some wonderful accounts of the art students' life in 19th century Paris that are fabulous, and I'd like to one of those in the future. There are also some early and offbeat art histories that we could do in the future.

Viktoria, welcome, and thanks for the comment, all the way from Sweden. Whatever or whenever you feel like contributing would be wonderful. Yes, sorry it's Good Friday, but if that's a problem for you, I'm sure the discussion will continue into the weekend.

Seadit, Glad to meet you, and you have helpful friends. Good suggestions, by the way. And yes, the discussion will be here in the comments.

DMR, thanks for the Gutenberg link. I added that to the post.

Kevin, this book should be fascinating for us all to read or reread, and I'm sure commentators will bring some surprising perspectives.

great idea James. I read this book years ago (along with his painting one) and found it very helpful. As Twyla Tharpe says in her book (I may i suggest this one? ) the creative habit- masters always return to and respect the fundamentals.

This sounds great! I recently began re-reading all my old (and new) drawing books “…because learning is a lifelong process”. I don’t have this one, but I’m getting it, and looking forward to the discussions. Should be an interesting journey. –RQ

P.S.- In addition to the usual suspects, may I also suggest:Leonard Shlain: ‘Art & Physics’ (highly recommended)Matilde Marcolli: ‘Still Life as a Model of Spacetime’Tom Wolfe: ‘The Painted Word’Wassily Kandinsky: ‘Concerning the Spiritual in Art’Mark Levy: ‘Technicians of Ecstasy’Eliot Hutchinson: ‘How to think Creatively’Michael J. Gelb: ‘How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci’

If you are a Kindle user be aware that there are two downloadable versions on Amazon. One is free and it is almost useless as to cross references and navigation. The other is $0.99 and is considerably better because it is specifically formatted for the Kindle. Neither is as good as the hard copy version for use as a reference book though.

For people ordering this particular book - be aware that since it's out of copyright, any hack can take a PDF, print it, and sell it. I have this particular version: http://goo.gl/KlPgIe and it's TERRIBLE. The text is of course the original text, only there seems to be a lot of weird copying errors here and there. It's small format, and worst of all the images are all very low resolution. I mean painfully so, it's so obvious that the image files used for this book weren't suitable for print. Even the cover is pixelated.

Speed's book is a great one, so before you order it, make sure to read some reviews for that particular version.

I'm a retired teacher who spent 38 years teaching language arts. During those 38 years, the teaching of formal grammar waxed and waned, came in and out of popularity. I always felt the teaching of formal grammar was a necessity. Although one can write creatively without knowing the definition for a participial phrase, having the language to discuss style, form, and usage is so important. And so it is with art. Speed gives us the language of drawing so that we can employ and analyze--understand the creation of form.

Is this book club and its readings for experienced artists? I have little formal training...a couple of college art drawing classes that I took while still in high school. But I've always been artistic. My experience is mainly through practice/creation and less so a knowledge of theory and principles. The latter is what I am hoping to gain!! Will these books be over my head?

Hi! I've juste received the book. I'm french and I'll try to follow the discussions here. This book will only be the second one I read in English. I'm happy to get the opportunity to improve my English and my art knoledge. So, what could be a better reading for the next months than this book?